1. Must go to positivity, even in feeling I don’t deserve it…..or it’s too soon…confusing.

2. Little two-year-olds are pure, and full of light, and love, and joy. Make one smile.

3. Children can teach me lessons. In playing turn the light on, turn the light off with two-year-olds……. I was reminded of both metaphorical, and real “darkness.” We largely choose it or not. Kissi Watkins teaches that demons, and spirits choose and possess us. I asked her if this removes personal responsibility. I can’t remember her answer as being very convincing.

In opposition, it also reminded of light. In the flipping on of the light, and two-year-old laughter……and pursuit and chiding of me to lift my heavy head, and open my eyes….they cheered, “Wake up! Wake up!” This is what God wants of me, I think. Wants me to “Wake up. To remember His ways.”

4. In spite of our own personal “Heaven” or “Hell” realities, or in between gradiencies, the sun still rises and sets…..casts its warm light on both the righteous and the wicked. Nature is still majestically and beautifully dispayed. I can’t help but notice this. Exists whether we do or not…..whether we see it and appreciate it or not…..much like Truth, and God’s laws. God’s laws and promises….both in mercy and in justice are and will always be, and be administered.

5. Not only important to “Observe the Law of the Sabath,” but also to Observe on the Sabath. In seeing, must keep what is most important for the soul. In wanting to be more fully reduced, or flattened….not just emotionally, and humbled spiritually, but also physically.

In the absence of a good, hard swim…..I found my way to Timpanogos this afternoon, only to learn that God does not want us to stay down for long. Will save us even when we may not think we are worth saving.

Narrative: In all due respect, I had visualized being removed in a Stokes stretcher from off the mountain.

The mountain did not have the same good feel as other times. Colder, more lonely, imposing. Hoping it would in some way dish out a deserved punishment to me…..I hiked up to the first falls. My plan was to run the steep paved section. I mean really RUN it. Something I reserve for backroads to the Spillway. Something I have never done on Timp, only watched others do it. Thinking if I revisited the setting of a place that I accomplished physically “difficult things,” I would find hope and inspiration to accomplish additional “difficult things” this week. So I set off to do this. Difficult for sure. Shifty rocks and rolls erroded, and leaves…”Fallen” much like me….made running difficult. Worried I would roll an ankle, misplace in quick stepping, fall off the mountain and through the brush like a rough faced girl of Mongolian legend. All of this made me need to concentrate with great focus in perservering and driving arms and legs on and up the steep. In disgust, had to stop several times to catch breath and calm my Jumanji heart. This did not play out as I had wished in a kind of heart breaking work out. Forsaking such, like a wounded mountain friend, in time, made it to the falls intact. Warned by fellow hikers of foraging moose in the area. Kind of hoped to make this altercation with lanky legs among mountain ferns, a further punishment. Wanting to be more broken. Thinking this would help me feel better.

All the time hoping I would find answers here, as I have communed in this outdoor tabernacle all summer. The falls eventually brought peace. Soothing like multiple hot, ten minute showers, that turn into hours.

I’ve been dealing ibuprofin pharmacies, and spontaneous grievings and sobbings. This last, the other day when a Cafe Rio worker smiled at me and I began to sob because I could find no joy in smiling. Or when I read an overhead phrase at this same establishment that said, ” I sold my soul for a sweet pork salad.” So crazy, that if I didn’t know better, and I wasn’t in Hell, I would likely laugh. Difficult to sob in public though. Takes energy to keep it down and on the low…..blaming it all on extra onions. Hmm. More food lies. Grip a hot foil-rolled tortilla to go like a relay batton…..and gone from grand openings.

No time really to linger. Had to get down, and home……as this had not been part of the original go-to-school Sunday afternoon plan. Home again to accompany Mark in dutifully doling monthly home teachings, me insisting on substituting chit chat with Ensign rags.

Still time. Decided I could still salvage a self inflicted sentence. Knowing this was stupid, but choosing to do it anyway…..I started running. Ran with every foot pounding, joint slamming hop, step, and jump stride down the leafy mountain side. Afraid, but determined to go, go , go……all out fourth quartering, in spite of risk management saying, “DON’T DO THIS THING!” Like my sulky EGO fighting to suppress the truth in self preserving. Thought of the Guinness beer commercial, wheel chair playing competitive pick-up basketball blurb selling well, BEER! yes, but also a feeling of commaradery, character, and integrity. Things I have most likely lost, but would like to win back some day.

Pushed on harder. Wondering when I would go down. Seriously down, and down hard with any slight misjudgement. Down like powder puff girls, and broken collar bones down. The gravity and speed of the decline sure to affect disaster. But nothing happened. I ran on. Down, and down. Stronger and stronger. Surer and surer, true to the path and through the same leaves and stones that I had loved with a hole in the bucket heart. Feared in assending through blurry, sweaty eyesight, and blind twists and turns, until at the relief of footbridge. Slowed from a gallop, and cantor, to a wild colt trot. Stopped.

Then swinging on brain gym in breaking through a self taught, share cropped idea and lie: God doesn’t love me. I was caught up powerfully in the moment and even more, in the answer heard. Frustration. Anger. Disappointment. WHY GOD! Why do you save me?! Until as if hit by the weight of everything in sinning, and in His love. I could not breath. The Wind knocked out of me, like a certain wrap-around hit or homecoming tackle. Ordered and supersized a combo meal- throat and heart Chakra.

Ouch! Had’nt felt this since ninth grade, running the 880 yard event for track. Hyperventilating Truth. Truth is….Hyper means too much. My life and breath in this instant taken away by the immensity and realization that God loves me too much to let me go down. He does love me….enough to save me…..even from myself. Sobbed and sobbed the rest of the way, in a kind of pseudo albulterol breathing treatment psalmage. Looking around for Marlene in teal scrubs Pamper Chefiing mammograms. Da_ _! No thanks, ma’m.

Realized I had not succeeded in the seIf destruction I may have set out to administer, but finished in something better. Still reduced to nothing. But amazingly calm, and calmer in mind and spirit in melting into Pearl’s deep plush seats. I thanked God for this Sunday something. Remembering commandment number four…to keep the Sabath day holy as I payed the six dollar State Park fee, grateful for an unlocked latrine. Thinking I may have gotten this one partially right, even in missing Sacrament meeting like Rollie Pollie Ollie in the toddler board book. And even in other blunderings of 7/11 commandments. I found hope on the Mountain and in Pastor Scott’s Mountain LIfe audio broadcasts. Sighed and breathed again. Perhaps my legs will ache tomorrow in remembering. I hope so.

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About hrobertson2013

“Each man ( and mermaid) will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”.
Isa 32:2 NIV
Warning: The author of this blog is not an ordinary individual.
Even Mermaids need a rest from all that's real and grown up. Welcome to the wonder of blog. Come be audience to all that's wet and wild in her stories, poems and thoughts. Instructor by day, super hero by night, and mystical mermaid by summer. Whenever she has the fortune of diving into a pond, reservoir, or mountain waterfall, you'll find her there swimming, and singing songs of life.